by Diana Palmer
She arched against him, glorying in the feel of skin against wet skin, her bareness under his, the hardness of his muscles gently crushing her breasts. Her nails dug helplessly into his back while she felt the hunger in the smoke-scented warmth of his open mouth on hers, and she moaned tenderly when she felt the probing of his tongue.
He was whispering something in husky Spanish, his mouth insistent, his hands suddenly equally insistent with other fastenings, hard and swift and sure.
She started to protest, but he brushed his mouth over hers. His body was shuddering with desire, and he sat up, his eyes fiercely possessive as he began to remove the rest of her clothing.
“Shhh,” he whispered when she started to speak. “Let me tell you how it will be. My body and yours,” he breathed, “with the rain around us, the jungle beneath us. The sweet fusion of male and female here, in the Mayan memory. Like the first man and woman on earth, with only the jungle to hear your cries and the aching pleasure of my skin against yours, my hands holding you to me as we drown in the fulfillment of our desire for each other.”
The soft deepness of his voice drugged her. Yes, she wanted that. She wanted him. She arched as his hands slid down her yielding body, his lips softly touching her in ways she’d never dreamed of. The scent of the palm leaves and the musty, damp smell of the ruins in the rain combined with the excitement of Diego’s feverish lovemaking.
She watched him undress, her shyness buried in the fierce need for fulfillment, her eyes worshiping his lean, fit body as he lay down beside her. He let her look at him, taking quiet pride in his maleness. He coaxed her to touch him, to explore the hard warmth of his body while he whispered to her and kissed her and traced her skin with exquisite expertise, all restraint, all reason burned away in the fires of passion.
She gave everything he asked, yielded to him completely. At the final moment, when there was no turning back, she looked up at him with absolute trust, absorbing the sudden intrusion of his powerful body with only a small gasp of pain, lost in the tender smile of pride he gave at her courage.
“Virgin,” he whispered, his eyes bright and black as they held hers. He began to move, very slowly, his body trembling with his enforced restraint. “And so we join, and you are wholly mine. Mi mujer. My woman.”
She caught her breath at the sensations he was causing, her eyes moving and then darting away, her face surprised and loving and hungry all at the same time, her eyes full of wonder as they lifted back to his.
“Hold me,” he whispered. “Hold tight, because soon you will begin to feel the whip of passion and you will need my strength. Hold fast, querida, hold fast to me, give me all that you are, all that you have…adorada,” he gasped as his movements increased with shocking effect. “Melissa mía!”
She couldn’t even look at him. Her body was climbing to incredible heights, tautening until the muscles seemed in danger of snapping. She cried out something, but he groaned and clasped her, and all too soon she was reaching for something that had disappeared even as she sought to touch it.
She wept, frustrated and aching and not even able to explain why.
He kissed her face tenderly, his hands framing it, his eyes soft, wondering. “You did not feel it?” he whispered, making her look at him.
“It was so close,” she whispered back, her eyes frantic. “I almost…oh!”
He smiled with aching tenderness, his body moving slowly, his head lifting to watch her face. “Ah, yes,” he whispered. “Here. And here…gently, querida. Come up and kiss me, and let your body match my rhythm. Yes, querida, yes, like that, like—” His jaw clenched. He shouldn’t be able to feel it again so quickly. He watched her face, felt her body spiraling toward fulfillment. Even as she cried out with it and whispered to him he was in his own hot, black oblivion, and this time it took forever to fall back to earth in her arms.
They lay together in the soft darkness with the rain pelting around them, sated, exquisitely fatigued, her shirt and his pulled over them for a damp blanket. He bent to kiss her lazily from time to time, his lips soft and slow, his smile gentle. For just a few minutes there was no past, no future, no threat of retribution, no piper to pay.
Melissa was shocked by what had happened, so in love with him that it had seemed the most natural thing on earth at the time to let him love her. But as her reason came back, she became afraid and apprehensive. What was he thinking, lying so quietly beside her? Was he sorry or glad, did he blame her? She started to ask him.
And then reality burst in on them in the cruelest way of all. Horses’ hooves and loud voices had been drowned out by the thunder and the rain, but suddenly a small group of men was inside the ruin, and at the head of them was Melissa’s father.
He stopped dead, staring at the trail of clothing and the two people, obviously lovers, so scantily covered by two shirts.
“Damn you, Laremos!” Edward Sterling burst out. “Damn you, what have you done?”
Chapter Three
Melissa knew that as long as she lived there would be the humiliation of that afternoon in her memory. Her father’s outrage, Diego’s taut shouldering of the blame, her own tearful shame. The men quickly left the ruins at Edward Sterling’s terse insistence, but Melissa knew they’d seen enough in those brief seconds to know what had happened.
Edward Sterling followed them, giving Melissa and Diego time to get decently covered. Diego didn’t speak at all. He turned his back while she dressed, and then he gestured with characteristic courtesy for her to precede him out of the entrance. He wanted to speak, to say something, but his pride was lacerated at having so far forgotten himself as to seduce the daughter of his family’s worst enemy. He was appalled at his own lack of control.
Melissa went out after one hopeful glance at his rigid, set features. She didn’t look at him again.
Her father was waiting outside. The rain had stopped and his men were at a respectful distance.
“It wasn’t all Diego’s fault,” Melissa began.
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” her father said coldly. “I found the poems you wrote and the note asking Laremos to meet you so that you could—how did you put it?—‘prove your love’ for him.”
Diego turned, his eyes suddenly icy, hellishly accusing. “You planned this,” he said contemptuously. “Dios mío, and like a fool I walked into the trap…”
“How could I possibly plan a raid by guerrillas?” she asked, trying to reason with him.
“She certainly used it to her advantage,” Edward Sterling said stiffly. “She was warned before she left the house that there was trouble at your estate, Estrella told her as she rode out of the yard, and she went in that general direction.”
Melissa defended herself weakly. “I didn’t hear Estrella. And the poems and the note were just daydreaming….”
“Costly daydreaming,” her father replied. He stared at Diego. “No man with any sense of honor could refuse marriage in the circumstances.”
“What would you know of honor?” Diego asked icily. “You, who seduced my father’s woman away days before their wedding?”
Edward Sterling seemed to vibrate with bad temper. “That has nothing to do with the present situation. I won’t defend my daughter’s actions, but you must admit, Señor Laremos, that she couldn’t have found herself in this predicament without some cooperation from you!”
It was a statement that turned Diego’s blood molten, because it was an accusation that was undeniable. He was as much to blame as Melissa. He was trapped, and he himself had sprung the lock. He couldn’t even look at her. The sweet interlude that had been the culmination of all his dreams of perfection had turned to ashes. He didn’t know if he could bear to go through with it, but what choice was there? Another dishonor on the family name would be too devastating to consider, especially to his grandmother and his sister.
“I will not shirk my responsibility, señor,” Diego said with arrogant disdain. “You may rest assured that Melissa will be taken care of.”
/>
Melissa started to speak, to refuse, but her father and Diego gave her such venomous looks that she turned away and didn’t say another word.
The guerrillas had been dealt with. Apollo Blain, tall and armed to the teeth at the head of a column led by the small, wiry man Laremos called First Shirt, was waiting in the valley as the small party approached.
“The government troops are at the house, boss,” Shirt said with a grin.
Apollo chuckled, his muscular arms crossed over the pommel of his saddle. “Cleaning house, if you’ll forgive the pun. Glad to see you’re okay, boss man. You, too, Miss Sterling.”
“Thanks,” Melissa said wanly.
“With your permission, I will rejoin my men,” Diego said with cool formality, directing the words to Edward. “I will make the necessary arrangements for the service to take place with all due haste.”
“We’ll wait to hear from you, señor,” Edward said tersely. He motioned to his men and urged his mount into step beside Melissa’s.
“I don’t suppose there’s any use in trying to explain?” she asked miserably, too sick to even look back toward Diego and his retreating security force.
“None at all,” her father said. “I hope you love Laremos. You’ll need to, now that he’s well and truly hamstrung. He’ll hate both of us, but I won’t let you be publicly disgraced, even if it is your own damned fault.”
Tears slid down her cheeks. She stared toward the distant house with a sick feeling that her life was never going to be the same again. Her hero-worshiping and daydreaming had led to the end she’d hoped for, but she hadn’t wanted to trap Diego. She’d wanted him to love her, to want to marry her. She had what she thought she desired, but now it seemed that the Fates were laughing at her. She remembered a very old saying that had never made sense before: be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.
* * *
Weeks went by while Melissa was feted and given party after party with a stiff-necked Señora Laremos and Juana, Diego’s sister, at her side. Their disapproval and frank dislike had been made known from the very beginning, but like Diego, they were making the most of a bad situation.
Diego himself hardly spoke to Melissa unless it was necessary, and when he looked at her she felt chilled to the bone. That he hated her was all too apparent. As the wedding approached, she wished with all her heart that she’d listened to her father and had never left the house that rainy day.
Her wedding gown was chosen, the Catholic church in Guatemala City was filled to capacity with friends and distant kin of both the bride’s and groom’s families. Melissa was all nerves, even though Diego seemed to be as nonchalant as if he were going to a sporting event, and even less enthusiastic.
Diego spoke his vows under Father Santiago’s quiet gaze with thinly veiled sarcasm and placed the ring upon Melissa’s finger. He pushed back the veil and looked at her with something less than contempt, and when he kissed her it was strictly for the sake of appearances. His lips were ice-cold. Then he bowed and led her back down the aisle, his eyes as unfeeling as the carpet under their feet.
The reception was an ordeal, and there was music and dancing that seemed to go on forever before Diego announced that he and his bride must be on their way home. He’d already told Melissa there would be no honeymoon because he had too much work and not enough free time to travel. He drove her back to the casa, where he deposited her with his cold-eyed grandmother and sister. And then he packed a bag and left for an extended business trip to Europe.
Melissa missed her father and Estrella. She missed the warmth of her home. But most of all, she missed the man she’d once loved, the Diego who’d teased her and laughed with her and seemed to enjoy having her with him for company when he’d ridden around the estate. The angry, unapproachable man she’d married was a stranger.
It was almost six weeks from the day she and Diego had been together when Melissa began to feel a stirring inside, a frightening certainty that she was pregnant. She was nauseated, not just at breakfast but all the time. She hid it from Diego’s grandmother and sister, although it grew more difficult all the time.
She spent her days wandering miserably around the house, wishing she had something to occupy her. She wasn’t allowed to take part in any of the housework or to sit with the rest of the family, who made this apparent by simply leaving a room the moment she entered it. She ate alone, because the señora and the señorita managed to change the times of meals from day to day. She was avoided, barely tolerated, actively disliked by both women, and she didn’t have the worldliness or the sophistication or the maturity to cope with the situation. She spent a great deal of time crying. And still Diego stayed away.
“Is it so impossible for you to accept me?” she asked Señora Laremos one evening as Juana left the sitting room and a stiff-backed señora prepared to follow her.
Señora Laremos gave her a cold, black glare from eyes so much like Diego’s that Melissa shivered. “You are not welcome here. Surely you realize it?” the older woman asked. “My grandson does not want you, and neither do we. You have dishonored us yet again, like your mother before you!”
Melissa averted her face. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said through trembling lips. “Not completely.”
“Had it not been for your father’s insistence, you would have been treated like any other woman whose favors my son had enjoyed. You would have been adequately provided for—”
“How?” Melissa demanded, her illusions gone at the thought of Diego’s other women, her heart broken. “With an allowance for life, a car, a mink coat?” Her chin lifted proudly. “Go ahead, señora. Ignore me. Nothing will change the fact that I am Diego’s wife.”
The older woman seemed actually to vibrate with anger. “You impudent young cat,” she snarled. “Has your family not been the cause of enough grief for mine already, without this? I despise you!”
Melissa didn’t blink. She didn’t flinch. “Yes, I realize that,” she said with quiet pride. “God forbid that in your place I would ever be so cruel to a guest in my home. But then,” she added with soft venom, “I was raised properly.”
The Señora actually flushed. She went out of the room without another word, but afterward her avoidance of Melissa was total.
Melissa gave up trying to make them accept her now that she realized the futility of it. She wanted to go home to see her father, but even that was difficult to arrange in the hostile environment where she lived. She settled for the occasional phone call and had to pretend, for his sake, that everything was all right. Perhaps when Diego had time to get used to the situation, everything would be all right. That was the last hope she had—that Diego might relent. That she might be able to persuade him to give her a chance to be the wife she knew she was capable of being.
Meanwhile, the sickness went on and on, and she knew that soon she was going to have to see a doctor. She grew paler by the day. So pale, in fact, that Juana risked her grandmother’s wrath to sneak into Melissa’s room one night and ask how she was.
Melissa gaped at her. “I beg your pardon?” she asked tautly.
Juana grimaced, her hands folded neatly at her waist, her dark eyes oddly kind in her thin face. “You seem so pale, Melissa. I wish it were different. Diego is—” she spread her hands “Diego. And my grandmother nurses old wounds that have been reopened by your presence here. I cannot defy her. It would break her heart if I sided with you against her.”
“I understand that,” Melissa said quietly, and managed a smile. “I don’t blame you for being loyal to your grandmother, Juana.”
Juana sighed. “Is there something, anything, I can do?”
Melissa shook her head. “But thank you.”
Juana opened the door, hesitating. “My grandmother will not say so, but Diego has called. He will be home tomorrow. I thought you might like to know.”
She was gone then, as quickly as she’d come. Melissa looked around the neat room she’d been given, with its dark anti
que furnishings. It wasn’t by any means the master bedroom, and she wondered if Diego would even keep up the pretense of being married to her by sleeping in the same room. Somehow she doubted it. It would be just as well that way, because she didn’t want him to know about the baby. Not until she could tell how well he was adapting to married life.
She barely slept, wondering how it would be to see him again. She overslept the next morning and for once was untroubled by nausea. She went down the hall and there he was, sitting at the head of the table. The whole family was together for breakfast for once.
Her heart jumped at just the sight of him. He was wearing a lightweight white tropical suit that suited his dark coloring, but he looked worn and tired. He glanced up as she entered the room, and she wished she hadn’t worn the soft gray crepe dress. It had seemed appropriate at the time, but now she felt overdressed. Juana was wearing a simple calico skirt and a white blouse, and the señora had on a sedate dark dress.
Diego’s eyes went from Melissa’s blond hair in its neat chignon to her high-heeled shoes in one lightning-fast, not-very-interested glance. He acknowledged her with cool formality. “Señora Laremos. Are you well?”
She wanted to throw things. Nothing had changed, that was obvious. He still blamed her. Hated her. She was carrying his child, she was almost certain of it, but how could she tell him?
She went to the table and sat down gingerly, as far away from the others as she could without being too obvious. “Welcome home, señor,” she said in a subdued tone. She hardly had any spirit left. The weeks of avoidance and cold courtesy and hostility had left their mark on her. She was pale and quiet, and something stirred in Diego as he looked at her. Then he banked down the memories. She’d trapped him. He couldn’t afford to let himself forget that. First Sheila, then Melissa. The Sterlings had dealt two bitter blows to the Laremos honor. How could he even think of forgiving her?
Still, he thought, she looked unwell. Her body was thinner than he remembered, and she had a peculiar lack of interest in the world around her.
